Dr Sarah Annie Cooper
Personal Details
Dr Sarah Annie Cooper FFARCS MRCS LRCP DA
31/10/1892 to 18/02/1999
Place of birth: Ayr, Scotland
Nationality: British
CRN: 526713
Also known as: Joan
Education and qualifications
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General education |
Schooling unknown; Charing Cross Hospital Medial School, winning the William Travers Prize in Midwifery & Gynaecology (1919) and the Governer’s Gold Medal in Clinical Medicine & Surgery (1920). |
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Primary medical qualification(s) |
MRCS LRCP, 1920 |
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Initial Fellowship and type |
FFARCS by Election |
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Year of Fellowship |
1953 |
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Other qualification(s) |
DA(RCP&S), 1939 |
Professional life and career
Postgraduate career
After qualifying she was sequentially house physician, house surgeon and house officer in obstetrics at Charing Cross Hospital before working as an assistant in GP. A year of this convinced her that it was what she wanted to do so she sought, and eventually bought, a partnership in an all-women practice, this happening to be in Cambridge. It included being an honorary anaesthetist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and with the introduction of the NHS in 1948 she became a full-time consultant, holding this post until her retirement circa 1957.
Professional interests and activities
Her career started in the era of open ether and chloroform, but she embraced all the developments in drugs and techniques introduced thereafter although general practice remained her first love. She also watched with delight the development of the Addenbrooke’s department into a major clinical and academic centre, considering herself its ‘mother’, and later ‘grandmother’.
Other biographical informationShe had always wanted to be a doctor, but her father (a Methodist minister) thought the future for lady doctors was unsure so she trained first as a pharmacist, and worked at the Burroughs Wellcome analytical laboratory in Gravesend. After two years she persuaded her father to allow her to go to medical school and was among Charing Cross’s first intake of women. Her original given names were ‘Sarah Annie’, and these were used when she first registered as a medical student, and on her death certificate, but she was always known as ‘Joan’, and this was the name under which she was registered with the GMC. She remained active, with agreat interest in all that happened around her, not only into retirement, but past her hundredth birthday.
Other biographical information
She had always wanted to be a doctor, but her father (a Methodist minister) thought the future for lady doctors was unsure so she trained first as a pharmacist, and worked at the Burroughs Wellcome analytical laboratory in Gravesend. After two years she persuaded her father to allow her to go to medical school and was among Charing Cross’s first intake of women. Her original given names were ‘Sarah Annie’, and these were used when she first registered as a medical student, and on her death certificate, but she was always known as ‘Joan’, and this was the name under which she was registered with the GMC. She remained active, with agreat interest in all that happened around her, not only into retirement, but past her hundredth birthday.
Author and sources
Author: Dr Robert Palmer assisted by Dr Aileen Adams
Sources and any other comments: Adams A. Dr Joan Cooper FFARCS. Proc Hist Anaes Soc 1992; 11: 29-30 | Medical Registers & Directories